Diligo est Poena
by Ocean-Eyed Wolf
Summary: L knew he loved the boy; and he knew how badly it would hurt him. Neither of them knew that love is beautiful pain Contains yaoi, angst, and language. LxMello


Death Note, LxMello

Contains yaoi, agnst, and language. Don't like, don't read.

He heard him coming before he even reached the door.

He was the only one that had ever been inside the dark haired man's room, the only one who had ever really seen the more intimate details of the older man's life. He loved the boy, he knew that...he had known that for quite some time. As long as...when was it? The first time the boy ever came to him, needing the comfort he could find only in those fatigued yet kind eyes? The first time they ever set eyes on one another? No, maybe not...he loved the boy deeply, it was true. But he realized that it was no different from the love he felt for everyone in the orphanage.

The blonde entered without knocking and bounded into the room where his beloved detective sat in his trademark hunched over style on the small couch. The younger boy grinned.

"L!"

The detective looked up at him slowly with those black orbs. "Hello, Mello."

Mello smiled, but looked puzzled. Usually L was more...exuberent about seeing him.

"Something wrong, L?"

"Sit down, Mello," the dark haired man said softly, petting the cushion next to him. The blonde obeyed, looking up at L with his wide, deep blue eyes.

"L?" he said before the detective could speak.

"Yes, Mello?"

"I've been wanting to ask you something."

"Ask."

A moment of silence passed between them before Mello spoke again.

"I want to join the case with you."

L blinked at him, then sighed, placing a hand gently on the younger boy's shoulder.

"Mello, you know that's impossible."

"Why?"

So stubborn, L thought. Even I can't protect him from that.

"It's too dangerous. I could die at any moment at the hands of Kira."

"So?"

"I refuse to put you in danger like that."

"What if I put myself there?"

"Mello...,"

"What, L?"

L sighed and dipped his head, making him look even frailer and smaller than usual. Before he knew what was happening, however, Mello had crawled into his lap (dropping his clarity level by at least forty percent) and was staring up at him again with his blue orbs.

They had seen much in his young life, yet they still held innocence...

L hated himself so much for what he was about to do...

Mello began nuzzling and nipping at the older man's neck, before he was slowly pushed away by L. He stared at him, feeling more confused than anything else.

"L...?"

"Mello...listen," he said quietly, struggling to keep his voice under control. He hadn't known it would be this hard.

He knew he never should have let things get this far. He knew he was hurting the boy by what he was doing, and that now that hurt would be even worse.

The words came slower than he meant them too, dragging their meaning like a knife through flesh.

"Mello...we can't keep doing this."

Mello blinked up at him; the words took their time to sink in.

"What do you mean 'we can't keep doing this'?"

L just kept his head lowered.

"Sometimes I just like to be near you, okay?!" Mello shouted, his practically shaking from the eruption about to burst from him.

"Why, L...WHY?!"

Silence as empty as death.

"I hurt you."

"No, you DON'T!"

"I do, Mello. I never should have...,"

"What?" Mello demanded. "Never should have WHAT?"

L solemnly closed his eyes and stood up, only to find himself pinned to the ground an instant later. Mello was surprisingly strong for his age.

"Answer me, L," the younger male spat.

"Mello, get off," he said in his patient, sympathetic tone, which only served to enrage the blonde further.

"No, ANSWER ME!" he all but screamed.

"I knew it would hurt you...," L muttered.

"If you knew it would hurt me, then why did you do it?"

"BECAUSE YOU MAKE IT SO HARD TO RESIST."

Mello stared at the dark haired man for a moment, pain showing through his eyes unlike anything else, making L hate himself more and more.

The blonde pinned the older man's arms down and slowly began grinding against the detective's groin.

"Mello...s-stop it..." L protested, trying to force the younger boy off of him.

"No," he snarled, sliding his hand down to the zipper of L's jeans. With his free hand, the dark haired male attempted to push Mello off, but the blonde held firm as he slowly began to squeeze on the detective's shaft. L bit his lip, fighting with everything he had to avoid giving in. However, do his dismay, his body responded naturally to Mello's actions, and before he knew what was happening, the blonde impaled himself on L's erection.

"L...," Mello whimpered. Tears gathered at the edge of this clenched eyes and pain ripped through his body. L's first instinct was to push the boy off, but he remembered that Mello was not protected with any lubrication, and one wrong move could lead to serious internal tearing. Instead, the detective stayed motionless, letting Mello pump against him and his own body respond naturally, although he displayed no signs of his own pleasure.

He was disgusted with himself, to let this go so far...he should have never given this to Mello, for he realized now that he was no better from the average pedophile. He had told himself he loved Mello, which was true, but only in a protective sort of way, no different from how he loved the other children at Wammy's...and yet he had led the boy on, gave him his own body...for what? His own pleasure? It was enough to make him want to vomit.

"L!"

L slowly opened his eyes, to reveal Mello panting on top of him, having reached his climax, before slumping on top of the detective.

Feeling lower than dirt, lower than nothing, L gently pushed Mello off of him onto the floor. In no physical condition to struggle, the blonde could only watch with pleading eyes as the detective stood, zipped up his pants, and looked at Mello with those damned, damned eyes.

They held so much sadness, so much tenderness, and so much self-loathing, it was enough to bring tears streaming down the blonde's face.

"L...!"

"I'm sorry, Mello...it's over."

And with a last, sad ghost of a smile, L was gone.

"L...don't go!" he screamed at the empty room. "Please...don't go...don't go...,"

he trailed off as he curled into a ball and allowed hot tears to fall, something he had almost forgotten how to do.

He could never hate L...those eyes and that hunch and that sweet bakery scent...it was impossible to hate. Right now, he couldn't think about any emotion at all...except how empty his stomach felt, and how he tasted bile at the back of his throat.

Mello was smart, a genius in fact, second only to Near - how he loathed that little albino brat - but in all honesty, there was only one subject that he had ever truly applied himself in - the language of Latin. Lying there in L's room, which smelled like his dark haired lover, he remembered a solitary line from a poem he had read long ago in an old, battered Roman literature book.

Diligo quod poena es unus.

Love and pain are one.

In his distraught mind, he could not comprehend that there indeed would be other chances at love in his life; he could not bring himself to accept that human relationships, like the seasons, change and evolve, and that even love that fades is like a seraphim guiding one to the next place; he could not feel anything, except that L had left - and somewhere, deep inside of him, he realized that he would never see the detective again.

As he lay there, crying like the little child of himself that was long gone, he made up his mind - one day, he would beat all of them, beat Near, and everyone who had ever doubted him, and become what L was. Become everything that he had seen in L and loved.

Little did he know his narrow vision would lead to his own destruction.

Diligo est decorus poena.

Love is beautiful pain.


End file.
